Come Along, Caroline
by Liyrah
Summary: A jaded secretary meets a mad man in a box on the eve of her death. Please read the author's note.
1. The End

**A/N: Hello there. So here's a plot bunny that's been floating around in my head for a while. I actually looked to see if a fic like this existed and couldn't find one, so I decided to write one myself. I plan on this being about 3 or 4 parts and I also already have a Portal 2 era sequel planned. This fic is going to be more character driven, not really an epic action-y fic, so if that's what you're looking for, I'm sorry but you won't find it here. **

**Timeline wise, this story takes place for Caroline shortly after Cave Johnson's death and for Eleven just after he leaves Amy and Rory at the end of "The God Complex". **

**That being said, I hope you enjoy. Please be kind and leave a review if you have the time! -Liyrah**

He met her on a late spring night sometime in the late 20th century.

The TARDIS-unreliable as she could sometimes be-missed 16th century France by both a few centuries and a few thousand miles landing, according the Doctor's readings, somewhere in the American midwest.

Ah, well, he thought to himself, what's life without a few surprises?

Emerging from his ship, he wasn't too surprised to see that his grand entrance had created a minor disturbance, but he was rather surprised to find the exact kind of reaction he received. A middle aged woman-brunette, slender, rather motherly looking-sat across the room glaring at him. Her eyes were bloodshot and sunken in, a classic sign of sleep deprivation. The tip of her nose was an unbecoming shade of pink and the wetness around her eyes gave away that she had been spending the better part of her time in tears.

And still she glared.

The room was filled to the brim with brown packing boxes, all carrying the same logo and company name: Aperture Science Innovators. Miscellaneous sheets of paper littered the floor, some intact, some looking as if they'd been angrily ripped to shreds in some fit of rage. The Doctor spun in place several times, surveying the imagery around him, or lack thereof.

The woman across the room cleared her throat loudly. The Doctor was surprise, and a little disappointed he supposed, at her lack of astonishment and awe that a blue telephone box had just materialized in her office.

"Uh..." the Doctor stammered awkwardly, "I, uh-just passing through actually, made a wrong turn it looks like." He took a few steps forward, craning his head as if inspecting the room. "What is this place?"

The woman inhaled sharply, and the Doctor thought he saw for a moment a fleeting glimmer of nostalgia in her eyes. "It doesn't matter anymore," she said, monotonously, her shoulders slumping in defeat.

The Doctor cocked his head to the side. "Of course it matters," he said calmly, "everything matters."

She sniffed a little and shrugged her shoulders. "So who are you then?" she asked, "Is this-" she gestured casually towards the TARDIS with one hand, hardly looking at it, "-some sort of experiment going on downstairs? Because I hate to tell you, but all of our science innovations are being put on hold until further notice."

The Doctor shook his head. "I'm not...from around here," he replied.

The woman cocked an eyebrow, "Sure," she said, as if he had just proposed that the two go have a cup of tea together.

He crossed the room, pulling up a chair from amidst the boxes. "What's your name then?" he asked as he sat down across from her.

She swiveled in her chair to face him, "Caroline."

"Well, Caroline," he said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, hands to his chin. "I'd say that most people are more surprised when a spaceship materializes in their office."

The brunette hardly missed a beat. "Well, once you've seen one miracle of science, you've seen them all," she stated. The Doctor thought he sensed a bit of bitterness in her voice.

The Timelord mustered a smile, the edges of his mouth upturning ever so slightly. "Oh, I strongly disagree with that."

Caroline turned in her chair, putting her legs back underneath her desk. Head in hands, she muttered, "Maybe if you'd been twenty years earlier." She gave him a sidelong glance, "I don't even know why I'm discussing this with you. Who are you?"

Now the Doctor full on grinned, "I'm the Doctor."

Caroline couldn't help but smile slightly, "Fine," she replied, "I'm not even going to question you."

"Oh Caroline, questions are half the fun! Humor me, at least."

Her grin grew wider, "Fine then. Why are you called 'the Doctor?'"

He leaned forward, her face only inches from his. "I'm sorry Caroline," he said quietly, "That's a secret." Then, he reached forward and poked her nose playfully.

A laugh. "Well why did you want me to ask then?" she questioned, batting his hand away, though not maliciously.

"Because I can tell it's been a long time since you asked a meaningful question."

There was a pause. Caroline looked down and appeared for a moment to be closely examining the tops of her shoes. "It's been years, I guess." she confirmed. She looked up, and craned her head around the doctor to examine the blue box behind him for the first time. "That's not really a spaceship is it?"

"Sure it is!" he exclaimed, hopping to his feet and reaching up to adjust his bow tie. He backed up, closing the space between himself and the TARDIS. "Care to see for yourself?"

He snapped his fingers. The door sprung open.

As if being pulled by an unseen force, a wide-eyed Caroline took several tentative steps towards the TARDIS. Light spilled out from the interior, illuminating the wonders waiting on the inside. She glanced warily at the Doctor. He just smiled. Taking a deep breath as if to brace herself, she crossed the thresh hold into the ship, the Timelord right on her heels.

Upon entering, the Doctor heard Caroline's breath catch in her throat. He could hardly contain his giddiness-this was his favorite part.

"It's..." Caroline began.

"Bigger on the inside?" the Doctor guessed, jumping the gun a bit in his excitement.

"Well, yes. But I was going to say...beautiful. I-I've never seen anything like this in my entire life. And that's saying something."

"It's a TARDIS," the Doctor explained, "Time and Relative Dimensions in Space."

"So what does it do then? Is it like a glorified traveling device?"

"Time traveling device," the Doctor corrected, standing up a bit straighter and puffing out his chest as if he were a proud parent showing off his child.

Caroline took a few more steps forward. Her eyes were as big as saucers. "Time traveling. Of course."

Abruptly, she turned on her heels, a determined glare in her eyes, "So you're telling me that you can leave right now, and have hundreds of years of adventures, and then return back to this very moment and it would be as if no time had passed?"

"Well, yes, I suppose," the Doctor answered, suddenly feeling a little uneasy.

He noticed tears in her eyes, her fierce demeanor softening and becoming desperate. "Please take me somewhere, Doctor. Just for a little while."

He smiled, widely. He hadn't planned on taking anyone with him anymore-his death looming uncomfortably around the corner-but he couldn't see the harm in one quick trip to cheer up an obviously sad woman.

"Anywhere in mind?"

Caroline's eyes never left his. Her green eyes bore into his, unblinking.

"Anywhere but here."


	2. Geronimo

**A/N: ****I want to thank those of you who who have left me feedback, and sorry for disappearing on you like that. I'm thinking of taking this story in a whole new direction. A little less introspection, a little more adventure. What do you think? **

* * *

Caroline's fingers gently traced the levers and grooves of the TARDIS console.

"Where on earth did you acquire such a thing, Doctor?"

The Doctor joined her in inspecting the console, watching her intently as she studied every bit of the old machine. Of every human being to enter his TARDIS, none had ever showed such an interest in the spaceship itself. The TARDIS, much to his ire, was often treated only as transport between here and there, between the ordinary and the _somewhere else_ when, really, she was oh-so-much more than that.

"Borrowed it," the Doctor answered, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. 'Borrowed' did sound better than 'stole', didn't it?

Caroline smiled with half her mouth, not looking up from the gadget she was inspecting, "That didn't sound very convincing."

The Doctor remained silent, fiddled with the controls a little, until Caroline said, "Stolen technology then?"

"No, no, no!" the Timelord exclaimed hastily, "No, it's my own people's technology. And I really did mean to give it back one day, it just happens that there's nowhere to return it to anymore. This TARDIS and I...we're the last ones, you see."

Caroline finally looked up at him. She looked, somehow, so much younger against the backdrop of the spaceship. So much more spark behind her eyes. "The last of what?" she asked.

"My kind."

The brunette cocked an eyebrow suspiciously at him, but she didn't push the issue. Instead, she replied, "I guess I know what that's like. To be the last."

"What do you mean, Caroline?" asked the Doctor, solemnly. He worried for her, despite barely knowing her at all. He couldn't help it—it was his nature to be a nurturer. She had such a dark aura about her, this woman, and he would have been lying if he pretended he didn't want to know more. "What happened to your kind?"

She sighed, stepping away from the controls and settling herself against the guardrails surrounding the platform, "They moved on," she replied with a slight shrug. A feeble attempt at ambivalence.

He stepped closer to her, less than an arm's length away. For the first time, they locked eyes. "And you didn't. Why? What makes you different, Caroline?"

The old bitter laugh once again escaped the woman's lips, and she broke the gaze, "Because I'm an idiot," she snorted.

"Oh, I don't believe that for a second, Caroline."

She snapped her head back up, her green eyes narrowing in disgust—at what, the Doctor didn't know, and she held them there for a few tense moments before she spoke. "Do you want to know the truth, Doctor? The truth is, I wasted my life away in that damned excuse for a laboratory, waiting hand and foot on a man who saw me every single day of his life for the past three decades, but never even _looked _at me. And for what? So he could go and die on me? So he could go and die on me _and_ pull me down with him?"

Her eyes welled up with emotion and she pursed her lips. "And I just let it happen," she concluded solemnly, "when, sometimes I think I could have been so much _more_."

"Your life's not over yet, Caroline," he comforted.

Caroline pursed her lips, and the Doctor cocked his head to one side, confused. "Hey," he said, reaching out to stroke her cheek. Her face was wet with tears that neither of them had noticed were falling. Normally, Caroline would have slapped someone round the face had they touched her in such a way, but the Doctor, somehow, was different. Nurturing, innocent, and genuinely concerned, she couldn't help but feel touched that his impossible creature had managed to find her. "What aren't you telling me, Caroline?" He asked, almost a in a whisper, his tone promising to keep secret whatever she decided to disclose.

"I marked for death, Doctor," she managed to say, struggling to keep some composure. Sure she was angry. And scared. Terrified, really. But she would be damned if she turned into a blubbering wreck in front of a person who was, more or less, a complete stranger. She liked to think of herself as at least slightly more dignified than that. "I sold my soul to Aperture a long time ago, and tomorrow it's finally going to come back to haunt me."

"Tomorrow?" He repeated, alarmed.

"Tomorrow," she confirmed, looking away.

The Doctor dropped his hand back to his side, "Are they going to kill you Caroline?"

"More or less."

Silence. Except for the constant whirring of the TARDIS, there was no sound between them. Caroline mentally berated herself for being so pathetically _open _and the wheels inside the Doctor's head turned with possible solutions. Could he promise this woman salvation? Should he really interfere?

Stupid question, he decided. He _always _interfered, regardless of _should _or _should not_.

"Tell me everything," he pressed.

And she did. From the beginning. From the day she hired as Cave Johnson's personal assistant, to her simultaneous adoration and hatred of the man, to Black Mesa, to the Portal Gun, to the present—doomed to spend all eternity trapped in a machine, running Aperture Science in her deceased boss's stead.

"Artificial Intelligence patterned after the human mind," the Doctor mused in spite of himself, "That's a bit brilliant actually. Been done before, but still, brilliant."

Caroline gawked at him, her brows furrowing with annoyance. "Good to know," she scoffed. The Doctor immediately regretted his words.

She crossed back to the TARDIS console. "Doctor," she began, a note of hesitation in her voice, "is there any way I can...I don't know...you said this machine traveled in time and-"

"No," the Doctor cut her off abruptly, his tone serious, "We can't go back on your personal timeline, Caroline. We can't go back thirty years and talk to you out of Aperture. You made your choice."

The brunette's shoulders slumped in defeat.

"No," the Doctor continued, "we can't do that. But..." he trailed off, gazing just over her shoulder thoughtfully.

"But...?" Caroline urged.

"But I won't let it happen. On my life, Caroline, I won't let them kill you."

Caroline was still skeptical, although the Doctor saw her demeanor change from utter defeat so hesitant hopefulness. "How," she asked.

"I'll figure something out," he said, "But first," he joined her once again at the console, and fiddled carefully with a few controls, "I think you deserve a little vacation."

He grinned at her, and she couldn't help but smile back, feeling that old fire within her sole reignite, something she hadn't felt in a long while. A yearning for adventure. "Where to?" he asked.

"Well," she said slowly, thinking carefully. A million possibilities lay before her, which should she choose? "I have always wanted to see ancient Egypt. Before it was ancient, that is."

"Brilliant choice!" the Doctor exclaimed, fiddling with the controls some more, this time with great enthusiasm. The two locked eyes again.

"Geronimo."


End file.
